Into the shopping mall, home appliances are dazzling, Haier refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, color TVs, washing machines, etc. are particularly eye-catching. This is not only because the lively and lovely Haier brothers make people feel close, but also because their nicknames such as "handsome prince, little prince, little superman, little champion and little prodigy" give people a strong visual impact.

Haier's management decision is to use a successful brand as the main brand to cover the series of products manufactured by the enterprise, and at the same time give different products a lively and attractive name as a sub-brand, use the main brand to show the social influence of the series of products, and use the sub-brand to highlight the different personality image of each product. This is a sub-brand strategy that more and more internationally renowned enterprises regard as a modern management coup.

China enterprises have not been on the road of brand for a long time, and most of them learn from and imitate some specific practices of Japanese and other Asian enterprises. The most obvious point is that China enterprises, like Japanese enterprises, mostly adopt a unified brand to cover all their products, and rarely adopt a multi-brand strategy.

Kelon Company is the earliest enterprise in China to implement multi-brand strategy, including Kelon, Huabao, Rong Sheng and other brands, but it is also a helpless move after Kelon merged with Huabao. In recent years, Senda and Kangbo have also embarked on the road of multi-brands. It can be predicted that more enterprises will take the road of multi-brand development, but most enterprises will still adhere to the established unified brand strategy, especially those enterprises that have a certain reputation at home and abroad, such as Haier, Changhong, Lenovo and Little Swan. For these enterprises, with the expansion of scale, especially the continuous extension of product chain, such as Haier's expansion from white appliances to black appliances and beige appliances, Changhong's development from black appliances to information products, the limitations of unified brand strategy will be highlighted. The mindset of "Changhong is a color TV", "Haier is a refrigerator" and "Little Swan is a washing machine" has hindered brand extension marketing. Choosing sub-brand strategy can effectively guide consumers to break through the original consumption pattern, accept and recognize new products, and quickly transfer their trust and loyalty to the main brand to new products.

Functions of sub-brands

The sub-brand strategy between one brand and multiple products and one brand and one product is still a brand extension strategy in essence, which uses consumers' trust and loyalty to existing successful brands to promote the sales of sub-brand products. From the practice of Haier, the sub-brand strategy really complements the unified brand strategy and successfully avoids the trap of multi-brand strategy and unified brand.

Sub-brands are conducive to the similarities and differences of goods. Corporate brands are like people's names. If "main brand" is compared to "surname", "sub-brand" is like a "name", and it is easier to distinguish products by surname. For example, Haier has a wide variety of household appliances, all of which are called Haier, which is inconvenient for consumers to distinguish and makes people feel vague. Haier calls the 0.5 kg small washing machine instant washing, the TV set Pathfinder and the beauty humidifier Little Monroe, which consumers can see at a glance. For the same product, sub-brands can also be used to distinguish specifications, tastes, grades, functions, etc. For example, Haier refrigerator chooses "Little Prince", "Handsome Prince" and "Little Prince".

Sub-brands highlight the beauty of commodity personality. It is often difficult for the main brand to fully display the personality of each product category, and the sub-brand can just make up for this deficiency. For example, "Hua Wang Jia Ying" vividly shows the advantages of "Panasonic-Hua Wang" color TV picture tube, such as revolutionary technology, realistic and natural pictures, bright colors and so on; "prodigy" shows the characteristics and advantages of Haier prodigy washing machine, such as computer control, full automation and intelligence.

Sub-brands reserve space for future development. The image of the main brand is often inconvenient to change greatly in the competition, while the sub-brands can make corresponding changes with the time, place and product characteristics, leaving room and room for the unified main brand to continuously introduce new products.

Sub-brands have the function of commodity promotion. Sub-brands are often a summary of product characteristics, close to the aesthetic concept of the target market, can generate new stimuli, establish new concepts, create new selling points, and have obvious effects on market promotion. Such as "instant washing", "health express", "voice of beauty" and "king of silence", it is easy to tie consumers' hearts and shorten the time and space distance with consumers. Encourage consumers to turn their desire to buy into action.

Sub-brands establish new competitive advantages. Sub-brands keep crashing into consumers' field of vision, which not only deepens the impression of their main brands, but also wins the freshness of large scale, strong strength, fast innovation, full of vitality and excellent service, and enhances consumers' trust and reputation in the main brands. In this respect, Haier has more advantages than Kelon and Chunlan.

Sub-brands have circumvented some legal restrictions. For example, the Trademark Law stipulates that "a trademark shall not use the quality, main raw materials and functions of goods such as ships as its trademark name". The adoption of sub-brands can effectively avoid this rule. For example, Hisense can advertise "Hisense-Smart King", but it cannot register the trademark "Smart King".

Naming of sub-brands

To sum up, the sub-brand strategy does have a great shock in marketing. But how to give the "sub-brand" wisdom and spirituality is very particular.

Pay attention to the coordination of main brands and sub-brands. Main brand is the foundation of sub-brand, and sub-brand is the extension of main brand. These two are interrelated organisms. For example, "Changhong-Red Sun", "Changhong-Double Happiness", "Konka-Fulinmen" and "Panasonic-Painting King" all echo each other, giving people a feeling of natural harmony.

Sub-brands should have Lenovo function. The main brand often does not express the functions and characteristics of the goods, while the sub-brands can produce the finishing touch effect through high refinement. For example, Midea's air conditioner is named after the constellation series-Cool Star, Super Quiet Star, Smart Star, Health Star ... After rough consideration, we find that this naming method has the following advantages: First, it is associated with stars and highlights excellent products; Second, the stars represent the universe, science and technology, showing leading quality; Third, the stars are cool colors, which represent night, quiet and cool, and highlight their functions.

The "three changes" and "three changes" of sub-brands are easy to read, recognize, remember, colloquial, popular and personalized, which are important principles for naming sub-brands. For example, "Haier-Instant Wash (Washing Machine)", "Robust-Healthy Express (Beverage)" and "Red Heart-Cookie (Electric Rice Charcoal)" sound sweet, easy to remember and spread quickly.

Sub-brands highlight the sense of the times and impact. The connotation of main brands is simple or even meaningless, such as Haier and Sony. When used in a variety of household appliances, there will be no obstacles in cognition and association. Sub-brands are the product of competition, and their basic mission is to reflect the characteristics of the times, cater to consumer fashion and embody product characteristics. When designing sub-brands, it is necessary to give consumers a strong auditory and visual impact, which will help them stand out from many brands in the earthquake and form a huge shock in the market. For example, Hisense-Smart King, Konka-Mirror, Toshiba-bazooka and TCL—-Ace are all influential sub-brands.

Sub-brand operation

We should pay attention to the following aspects when operating the sub-brand strategy.

To grasp the relationship between the main brand and the sub-brand, we must first highlight the core position of the main brand, and the sub-brand is only in a subordinate position. Enterprises need to make great efforts in publicity, recommendation and exploration, so that consumers can identify, remember and generate brand awareness, trust and loyalty. It must be the main brand, not the sub-brand. Sub-brand is only an effective supplement to the main brand and is in a subordinate position. Its propaganda must be attached to the main brand, and the sub-brands must not be allowed to surpass and break away from the main brand. As far as Haier is concerned, Haier, as a comprehensive household appliance brand, has a high reputation and reputation. People will not associate Haier with single products such as refrigerators and air conditioners, but think that Haier is an international home appliance brand with superior quality, leading technology, perfect after-sales service, rich culture and scientific management. Brand personalities such as "Haier, sincerity is far away from water", "Haier sells credibility, not products" and "users are far from right" have been deeply rooted in consumers' hearts. Without these, the sub-brands such as Pathfinder, Little Prodigy and Handsome Prince will lose their souls, and no matter how beautiful they are, they will be difficult to convey. Only under the banner of "Made in Haier-China" can these sub-brands shine brilliantly.

Distinguish between enterprise brand and product brand. Secondly, correctly grasp and distinguish the relationship between main and deputy brands, and the relationship between enterprise brands and product brands. "Haier-Double Prince" refrigerator and "Samsung-famous brand" color TV, Haier and Samsung are enterprise brands, and they are also directly used in products, which is the focus of product brand identification. So Haier and "Double Prince", Samsung and "Famous Brand" are the main and deputy brands. GM, Cadillac and Chevrolet belong to the relationship between corporate brands and product brands. Consumers' admiration for Cadillac is mainly established through the information that Cadillac is extremely luxurious, stable and comfortable, such as sitting at home, rather than resorting to the general image. Toyota and Crown, Camry, Lexus, Procter & Gamble and Rejoice, Head & Shoulders and Shufujia are also typical corporate brands and product brands.

Sub-brands are consistent with the target market. Thirdly, any brand that goes to the market and participates in the competition must identify its own target consumer groups. The taste and artistic conception advertised by sub-brands should be closely consistent with the target market, just right. As far as color TV sets are concerned, Changhong has launched "Changhong-Double Happiness" and "Changhong-Red Sun", and the target markets are mainly small and medium-sized cities and rural areas. Haier launched "Haier-Pioneer" and "Haier-Pathfinder", and the target market is obviously different from Changhong.

Sub-brand strategy has played a powerful role in the hands of Haier people, but not every enterprise can play well. It must be said that the implementation of sub-brand strategy must take the main brand as the core, and the focus of creativity must not be misplaced. Otherwise, it is putting the cart before the horse, which violates the original intention of the sub-brand strategy. What is lost is not the sub-brand, but the main brand of enterprise development.

Case:

Haier developed on the basis of introducing German refrigerator production technology in 1984, and began to mainly produce refrigerator refrigeration equipment. People all know that Haier started from Haier refrigerator = air conditioner. Up to now, Haier's products include refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, washing machines, color TVs, computers, mobile phones and other 69 categories 10800, and it is the first brand of white, black and beige household appliances in China. On the refrigerator, Haier has successively introduced "Haier-Little Prince", "Haier-Double Prince", "Haier-Big Prince", "Haier-Handsome Prince" and "Haier-Golden Prince". In terms of air conditioning, Haier has successively introduced "Haier-Little Superman" inverter air conditioner, "Haier-Little Champion" health air conditioner and "Haier-Little Talent" window machine. On the washing machine, Haier introduced "Haier-child prodigy", "Haier-child prodigy" and "Haier-instant washing". Haier also introduced Haier Pathfinder color TV, Haier Little Walrus Water Heater, Haier Little Princess Heater, Haier Crystal Princess Air Refresher, Haier Little Monroe Beauty Humidifier and other products. Since 16, Haier's sales revenue has been growing steadily at an average annual rate of 82%. In 2000, the sales exceeded 40 billion yuan, ranking among the top ten household appliances in the world. The reason why Haier has achieved such impressive results is not unrelated to its successful implementation of sub-brand strategy.

Let me analyze Neptune in a case.

On April 5, 2003, the annual report of Neptune Biology in 2002 was published. Data show that in 2002, Neptune Bio's main business income was about 8. 300 million, realized a profit of 42.22 million, and the earnings per share was 0. 13 yuan with a yield of 2. 5%, advertising investment is about 1. 3.3 billion. Compared with 200 1, the main business income is about 7. 6.5 billion, with a profit of 69.65 million and earnings per share of 0. 3 1 yuan, yield 4. 265,438+0%, and the advertising cost is 6,543.8+87 million yuan. The main financial indicators in the first quarter of 2003 showed that the earnings per share was -0.036 yuan and the return on net assets was -0.73%, resulting in a loss.

The 2002 annual report also shows the sales performance of its main products, such as Yinde Fayue 1. 65.438+0.8 billion, 93.04 million gold bottles and 88.32 million ginkgo leaves. What do the numbers say? As far as Yindefa is concerned, its share in the cold medicine market is no more than 3%, ranking outside 10, and it can't be compared with Contek. The annual sales of Sino-American SmithKline in 200/kloc-0 is about 1 1 100 million. As far as Ginkgo biloba leaves are concerned, it belongs to Ginkgo biloba preparation products in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular Chinese patent medicines. Compared with similar products (Tianbaoning and Shuxuening), the sales of the latter two products in 200 1 were 600 million yuan. If we only look at the products advertised, in 2002, we invested 1 yuan in advertising and only produced two. 25 yuan sales, that is, input 1. The advertising fee of 3.2 billion yuan has generated sales of about 300 million yuan, that is to say, if it is not the sales profit of other products of Neptune, as far as the above three products are concerned, it is definitely a loss.

From a purely numerical point of view, Neptune's brand projects in the past two years are unfavorable and are called "brand projects without sales" by many marketing consultants. However, it is puzzling that, as a well-funded listed company, why did a well-known brand fail to become an instant hit after introducing brand strategy, under the marketing environment of China, where the market has not been subdivided, the competition has not been heated, and consumers are far from mature, and under a perfect media plan? As a peer of Neptune, there are some aesthetic creative expressions, even bad habits, and the planning of the media is just like picking up blanks. The same advertising bombing, Harbin Pharmaceutical succeeded, melatonin succeeded, and melatonin even created a sales miracle of 700 million yuan in the week of Spring Festival in 2003. Why is Neptune the only one so unlucky?

We think Neptune is right to be a brand, and the brand can't be a scapegoat for Neptune's problem. The root of all this lies not in the brand strategy itself, but in whether it can be correctly understood and reasonably used. The root of Neptune's problem lies in not understanding the brand planning and implementation from a strategic perspective.

What is brand strategic planning?

It can be said that today's enterprises in China generally lack the consistent direction of brand strategic planning and brand building with brand awareness as the core, and the dissemination and promotion are often "faithful", so that brand assets are always difficult to accumulate. In this case, many well-known domestic enterprises, from the early Shenzhen Runxun, Sanjiu and Haier, Kelon to the recent COFCO and Putian, have introduced external brains and brand strategic planning in order to build strong brands.

But what exactly is brand strategic planning? What is its specific content? Steps and levels? what is the purpose? How to import? In view of these problems, even in the consulting industry, it is vague and even mixed. Some equate "brand model" with "brand strategy" and even "brand positioning" with "brand strategy".

In fact, brand strategy is to establish an enterprise strategy with shaping a strong brand as the core, and to upgrade brand building to the height of enterprise management strategy from a strategic height. Its core lies in finding the brand logo that matches the enterprise and has reliable support, setting the goals, directions, principles and guiding strategies of brand building, and formulating the articles of association of specific brand building tactics and behaviors in the future. It solves the fundamental problems of brand, including brand attributes, structure, scope, connotation and vision.

Brand strategic planning generally includes branding decision-making, establishing brand vision, choosing brand mode, brand identification and extension planning, management planning, integration with CS, CIS and other strategies, and strategic introduction. It is programmatic, instructive and competitive, not a specific tactical implementation plan, not a simple brand slogan and core values.

Neptune's brand strategy journey

Nepstar, as one of the few listed companies in the domestic pharmaceutical industry, has established the direction of brand management after stepping out of the trap of diversification and successfully completing capital operation. First, let's do a scan review:

L (lead-in period) In September 2000, the planning company spent two months conducting strict internal and external investigations, resulting in a targeted brand diagnosis;

L (planning period) At the end of 2000, the planning company completed the "Haiwang Group 2 1 Century Brand Strategy Implementation Plan" on the basis of brand diagnosis, and established the brand core value and the strategic goal of becoming a strong brand in the health industry in the future.

L (the first phase of climax) 200 1 At the beginning of a large-scale brand communication activity, four well-known brands, such as Indefa, came onto the stage after brand integration, and with exquisite, unique, accurate and orderly communication strategies, they suddenly emerged and quickly became well-known brands known to women and children.

L (trough) In April 2002, the long-awaited 200 1 annual report disclosed that the profit was less than 50% as expected, and the board of directors publicly apologized to investors. For a time, Neptune's brand strategy began to be questioned by the media.

L (climax phase II) In 2002, in the year of "entering the ground", we continued to carry out large-scale "air bombing" to assist in ground campaigns such as store advertising and terminal promotion. The interactive effect between brand and product began to appear.

L (crisis period) In April 2003, Neptune's 2002 annual report and the first quarterly report of 2003 were published, and its performance declined and even lost money. Suddenly, the words of "three common sense mistakes" and "eight crises" flooded, and Nepstar brand strategy was deeply questioned.

Neptune, is there a brand if there is a plan?

Looking back on Neptune's brand strategy journey, we can say that Neptune has many successes in introducing brand strategy, so I won't say much here. We believe that "the best learning is to learn from failure". It is not only easier to learn from failure, but also more thorough to analyze the factors of success or failure.

In my opinion, brand strategy solves the problem of "doing the right thing", brand communication is "doing the right thing", brand strategic planning sets the basic direction and principles for brand communication, and brand communication is nothing more than effective implementation according to brand strategic planning. Whether Neptune's brand communication is correct or not is not the root of Neptune's fate. Why Nepstar's brand project is a project with no sales volume, the key is the defect in brand strategic planning, which is reflected in the following aspects and is worth discussing.

(A) hasty one-sided brand diagnosis

The so-called "brand diagnosis", in short, is the test and investigation of brand assets, the relationship between brands and consumers, and the relationship between brands and competitive brands. It uses qualitative and quantitative methods as well as means of association, projection, personification and comparison to test consumers' cognition and feelings about the current brand. It is the first step to formulate brand strategy, aiming at clearly describing the actual state of the brand and laying the foundation for future brand strategy and communication planning.

It is reported that in July and August, 2000, Nepstar first conducted several days of internal interviews and questionnaires to employees, and then conducted a consumer survey in Shenzhen, where the base camp is located. From the survey object and geographical point of view, it is obviously insufficient, and the "diagnosis book" is also suspected of being "universally applicable", such as "brand confusion", "inconsistent brand recognition" and "outdated marketing model", especially from the point of view that the core value of "health makes the future" comes from the creative thinking of "being locked in the room", which has no causal connection with diagnosis at all.

In my opinion, before investigation and diagnosis, we should not only find out the specific problems that need to be solved, but also design specific solutions to the problems. The purpose of diagnosis is not only to find the problem, but more importantly, to verify the solution, rather than finding the problem and then "behind closed doors". Judging from the choice of main and sub-brand models in the later period, this diagnosis lacks the understanding of Nepstar brand assets, mistakenly chooses Nepstar, which is only the name of the enterprise, as the main brand to drive sub-brands, ignores the comparative study of competitive brands, and lacks the understanding of consumers' "health" consciousness. It can be said that Nepstar's brand diagnosis seems serious and rigorous, but in fact it is one-sided and fails to lay the foundation for the subsequent strategic planning.

(B) Rough strategic vision

The right strategy begins with setting the right goals. The essence of strategy is to choose, weigh and fit in. That is, you must set boundaries for what you are going to achieve. The so-called "brand strategy vision" is to design detailed development goals, realization stages and specific measurement indicators for brand strategy, and to clarify the direction, process and steps of brand strategy implementation. Generally, it includes defining the level and connotation, designing the development stage of the ladder, and formulating specific measurable indicators.

In September 2000, on the basis of brand diagnosis, the planning company completed the "Neptune Group 2 1 Century Brand Strategy Implementation Plan", the core content of which involves the trilogy of brand achievement and the three-year goal (brand planning in 2000; 200 1 mass communication; Intensive cultivation in the market in 2002; Strengthen the brand core value in the future) and "team theory" (first introduce a few star players and find out "Jordan" (Yin Defa, Jin Zun, etc. ), pursue the maximization of composite products sales and form a "strong team"). So, what are the specific time, stages and steps to achieve the goal? What are the indicators that can be used for future evaluation? Who is the profit-oriented Taurus brand? What about potential star brands? Unknown.

As we all know, a successful brand is based on one or several representative products, and Neptune mistakenly chose the carrier to build the brand. Yindefai, Jinzun and Ginkgo biloba can't play the role of "Jordan". Cold medicine is a traditional mature product, which is in the mature market, with fierce competition and slow market growth. Despite the PPA incident, it is not easy for Yindefa to rush into the top three in one fell swoop, and it is likely to become a profitable Taurus brand. Limited by the size of the market, "Golden Zun" can't do much; Ginkgo biloba is a medicine, not decided by consumers, but more influenced by doctors, which is not suitable for mass communication. It is difficult for them to be star brands.

No wonder Neptune and the planning company are not specialized in brand strategy research and implementation after all. Perhaps they are not obsessed with these seemingly "empty" and "boring" gray "theories" and "numbers" that can be referenced and measured in the future, and they are more eager to pay attention to the evergreen tree of reality. In fact, these seemingly "inaction" but "useful" things have formulated a rigorous feasibility analysis plan for the implementation of the strategy and established specific evaluation criteria for the implementation process.

(C) the core values of the empty chaos

The so-called "core value of the brand". It is the key center of brand recognition and the soul of the brand. It can make consumers clearly identify and remember a brand, and it is the leading force that drives consumers to identify, like and even cherish a brand. Therefore, the core value becomes the origin of brand identification and communication activities, that is, all communication behaviors of the brand must be carried out around the brand core value, which should be concrete, deductive, enriched and strengthened. For example, Volvo's core value is "safety" and Haier's core value is "sincerity".

But "the core value of a brand" is not necessarily an emotional spiritual proposition, but also a rational functional appeal, or a mixture of rationality and sensibility, such as P &；; The core value of Xiashufujia is "effective sterilization", Head & Shoulders is "dandruff removal", softness is "suppleness" and "confidence", and the core values of Xizhilang are "jelly pudding" and "affection". The key to refining the core value of a brand is to embody the strategic thinking and value concept of the enterprise. At the same time, at least on the one hand, it can make a difference with competitive brands and speak with consumers.

After the diagnosis was completed and the strategic vision was established, in June of the same year, 5438+00, through a "not a rigorous logical thinking process, but a highly divergent image thinking process", a core value that was deeply "touching, infectious and shocking" to Neptune at that time was created: "Neptune, health makes the future!" .

According to the thinking of the planning company, the phrase "health makes the future" gives Neptune a clear industrial orientation: health industry. It embodies the ultimate goal of Nepstar: to promote the development of national medicine industry and seek benefits for human health. It is also Neptune's expectation for himself after experiencing the troubles of success: enterprises should be healthy in addition to people's health needs, so that health can achieve the future and health can achieve brilliance. It sounds really logical and touching.

However, we must understand that we are consulting brand strategy rather than CIS planning, not engaging in artistic creativity. We are not facing Neptune and advertisers, but consumers, and the brand ultimately belongs to consumers. "Neptune, health makes the future" was recognized by Neptune at that time, which was completely understandable, because it catered to the development expectations of Neptune enterprises and the wishes of Neptune people. After careful consideration, we can easily find many misunderstandings:

1, wrongly equating corporate slogan with brand slogan.

"Health creates the future" is a corporate slogan, not a brand slogan. The strength and momentum of the Red Pagoda are the same as those required by the sun god. They are all flaunting their corporate mission, and they are all popular and universal corporate pursuits. Brand slogans centered on brand core values, such as Ness's "Don't buy expensive ones, only buy the right ones" and Metersbonwe Bang Wei's "Don't take the usual road", are all very classic. They seem to be consumers' own language, and they are talking, rather than what enterprises are instilling and guiding, which reflects their aspirations and pursuits. And "health makes the future" is more of an enterprise's own declaration. Whose future is this? I'm afraid Neptune himself.

In fact, the brand slogan is based on the internal and external interaction between enterprises and consumers. Enterprises should not only care about their own "what do you want to say?" And pay attention to consumers "What do you want to hear?" It is best to take the initiative to give way to consumers, let consumers express their ideas as masters and change their language patterns. At this time, the corporate slogan can be unified with the brand slogan.